Source Description:(caption title) A Bill To Exempt Certain Persons From Military Duty, and To Repeal the Acts Heretofore Passed by Congress on the Same Subject
8 p.
[Richmond, VA]
[The House]
[1863]

Call number 302 Conf. (Rare Book Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

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Library of Congress Subject Headings

A BILL
To exempt certain persons from military duty, and to repeal the acts heretofore passed by Congress on the same subject.

1 SECTION 1. The Congress of the Confederate States of America do
2 enact, That certain persons as hereinafter provided, are and shall
3 be exempt from military service in the provisional army of the
4 Confederate States:

1 I. Those who shall be held unfit for service in the field by
2 reason of bodily or mental incapacity, to be ascertained by a surgeon
3 of the army, who is not a resident of the part of the country
4 from which those he is called upon to examine may have come;
5 and persons declared to be unfit for duty in the field under this
6 act, or under the act entitled "an act to establish places of rendezvous
7 for the examination of enrolled men," approved October
8 11th, 1862, by reason of any organic disease, or permanent disability,
9 shall not be afterwards subject to be again examined and
10 enrolled.

1 II. The Vice President of the Confederate States, and the
2 officers, judicial and executive, of the Confederate and State governments,
3 including postmasters appointed by the President, and
4 confirmed by the Senate, and such clerks now employed in their
5 offices as are allowed in writing by the Postmaster General, and
6 excluding all other postmasters, their assistants, and clerks, and

7 except such State officers as the several States may have declared,
8 or may hereafter declare, by law, to be liable to military duty:
9 members of both Houses of the Congress of the Confederate
10 States, and of the Legislatures of the several States, and their
11 respective officers.

1 III. All volunteer troops heretofore raised by any State since
2 the passage of the act "further to provide for the public defence."
3 adproved April 16th, 1862, while such troops shall be in active
4 service under State authority: Provided, This exemption shall
5 not include any person liable to military duty under said last
6 named act.

1 V. The presidents, superintendents, conductors, treasurer,
2 chief clerk, engineers, managers, station agents, section masters,
3 two expert track hands to each section of eight miles, and
4 mechanics in the active service and employment of railroad companies,
5 not to embrace laborers, porters and messengers: Provided,6 That no President or conductor of any railroad company or
7 railroad train, shall be exempted from military service under this
8 act, when such president or conductor shall fail, neglect or refuse
9 to furnish seats to such wounded or sick soldiers of the army as
10 may desire transportation over such railroad, and fresh water for
11 drinking purposes, in such tanks or other vessels, in each passenger

12 car, as may necessary for the use of said sick and wounded,
13 and also the necessary fires to render said cars comfortable.

1 VI. Captains of boats, and the engineers and pilots thereof,
2 actually and regularly engaged in canal and river navigation, the
3 president of any canal company, the secretary, chief clerk, chief
4 toll-gatherer, and such mechanics in the permanent service of
5 said company as the president, under oath, shall declare to be
6 necessary and now employed; the president, general superintendent
7 and operators of telegraphic companies, and the local operators
8 of said companies, not to exceed two in number at any
9 telegraphic office but that at the seat of government of the Confederate
10 States.

1 VII. One editor of each newspaper now being published, and
2 such journeymen printers, engineers, pressmen and stenographic
3. reporters as the editor or proprietors thereof may certify, upon
4 oath, to be indispensable for conducting the publication; the
5 public printer, engineers, pressmen and such number of journeymen
6 printers as he may certify, upon oath, to be necessary for
7 the discharge of his duty.

1 VIII. Every minister of religion, authorized to preach according
2 to the rules of his sect, and now in the regular discharge of
3 ministerial duty: and all persons who have been, since the 16th of
4 April, 1862, and now are members of the society of Friends,
5 or the association of Dunkards, Nazarines or Menonists in regular

6 membership in their respective denominations: Provided,7 That such members shall furnish a substitute or pay a tax of
8 five hundred dollars each into the public treasury.

1 IX. All shoemakers, tanners, blacksmiths, wagon makers,
2 millers and their engineers and mill-wrights, skilled and actually
3 employed on the 16th of April, 1862, in said trades as their
4 regular vocation, and working therein for the public, and who
5 have since said time been so regularly employed: Provided, said
6 persons shall make oath in writing, supported by the affidavits
7 of two creditable persons, (which affidavits shall be delivered to
8 the enrolling officer,) that they, (said artisans and mechanics,)
9 are so skilled, and are, and have been, since the 16th of April,
10 1862, actually employed in one of the above trades as their regular
11 vocations, and working for the public; also, the superintendents
12 and operators in wool and cotton factories, paper mills and
13 carding machines, and in card factories, and in factories for
14 the manufacture of wire for cotton and wool cards: Provided,15 That the exemptions herein granted to persons on account of
16 their mechanical skill or occupation, shall be subject to the condition
17 that the product of the labor of said exempts shall not exceed
18 a fair and reasonable amount, and to be within a maximum to be
19 fixed by the Secretary of War, under such regulations as he may
20 prescribe: And provided, That in the case of the superintendents
21 and operators in wool and cotton factories, paper mills,

22 carding machines and mechanics in these and all other manufacturing
23 establishments, the manufactured articles shall be sold at
24 a net profit net to exceed thirty per centum upon the capital
25 invested, which fact shall be ascertained by the oath of the
26 president, superintendent or proprietors of such manufacturing
27 establishment: And provided, also, The presidents or proprietors
28 of the said establishments shall make affidavit in writing, to be
29 filed with the Secretary of war, that the superintendents and
30 operators therein are skilled as such and indispensable to said
31 establishments: And provided, If it shall be shown upon evidence
32 to be submitted to, and judged of by, the Secretary of War,
33 that any manufacturing establishment has violated this condition,
34 the exemptions herein granted shall no longer be extended
35 to the persons employed in said establishments or factories; but
36 each of them shall be forthwith enrolled and placed in the military
37 service.

1 X. All Presidents and professors of colleges and theological
2 seminaries, who have been regularly engaged as such for the two
3 years last preceding the 11th of October, 1862; all superintendents
4 of lunatic asylums and the regular physicians, nurses and
5 attendants therein; and all teachers regularly employed in institutions
6 for the deaf, dumb and blind.

1 XI. All physicians who now are, and have been for the last
2 five years, in the actual practice of their profession; and in each

3 apothecary store now established and doing business, one practical
4 apothecary in good standing as such.

1 XII. All artisans and mechanics employed in the manufacture
2 of arms or ordnance of any kind, ordnance stores, or other munitions
3 of war, or army supplies, by the several States or by
4 contractors to furnish the same to the several State governments,
5 whom the Governor or Secretary of State thereof may certify to
6 be necessary to the same: Provided, The persons contracting
7 with said State governments shall make oath in writing, to be filed
8 with the Secretary of War, that said employees are indispensable,
9 on account of their skill, to the successful performance of their
10 contracts.

1 XIII. All persons engaged under the authority of the Secretary
2 of the Navy in the construction of ships, gunboats, engines,
3 sails or other articles necessary to the public defence.

1 XIV. Superintendents, mechanics and miners, employed in
2 the production and manufacture of lead and iron; also persons
3 engaged in burning coke for the smelting and manufacture of
4 iron; regular miners in coal mines; and one collier to each furnace
5 and forge for making blooms and pig and bar iron; but said
6 exemption shall not apply to laborers, messengers and wagoners,
7 except at works employed exclusively for the State or Confederate
8 Governments: Provided, The persons interested in the exemption
9 from military duty of said superintendents, mechanics, miners and

10 colliers, shall make affidavit in writing, that said persons are
11 skilled in said labor, and are indispensable to such works, and
12 that after diligent effort, they have been unable to procure superintendents,
13 mechanics, miners and colliers who have been discharged
14 from the provisional army, or who are not subject to military
15 duty.

1 XV. In addition to the exemptions specified in the foregoing
2 paragraphs, the Secretary of War is hereby authorized, and it
3 shall be his duty under the direction of the President, to exempt
4 or detail from the Provisional Army, upon any terms or conditions
5 he may prescribe, such other persons as he may be satisfied,
6 with the sanction of the President, ought to be exempted or detailed,
7 in districts of country not supplied with slave or white
8 labor indispensable to the production of grain and provisions,
9 necessary for the support of the families of soldiers in the field;
10 or persons indispensable for the police of plantations cultivated
11 exclusively by slave labor, and owned exclusively by minors under
12 the age of eighteen, lunatics, femes sole, or persons in the
13 military or naval service; also for the maintenance and support
14 of the army, the public defense or the general vital interests of
15 the country; and it is the true intent and meaning of this act,
16 that the enumeration of the exemptions in the foregoing paragraphs,
17 shall not be construed to limit or restrain the exercise
18 of the power herein granted.

1 SEC. 2. That all exemptions by law shall only continue
2 whilst the person is holding the office, or engaged in the
3 pursuit or occupation, by reason of which the exemption was
4 granted; and nothing in this act or any other in relation to exemptions,
5 shall be construed so to exempt agents, clerks or
6 other persons employed by officers in the quartermaster, commissary
7 or other departments of the government, unless such
8 agents or clerks are allowed by law, and their fees or sallaries
9 fixed by law. Nor shall anything herein contained be construed
10 so as to authorize the discharge of any one now in the military
11 service of the Confederate government.

1 SEC. 3. That all laws and parts of laws providing for exemptions
2 from military service, are hereby repealed, and no person
3 exempted under previously existing laws shall continue to be
4 exempted, unless embraced within the provisions, and on the
5 terms and conditions of this act. The provisions of this act
6 shall apply to all persons between the ages of eighteen and forty-five
7 years, not in the military service. But this act shall not
8 repeal an act passed at the present session of Congress, entitled
9 "an act to exempt contractors for carrying the mails of the
10 Confederate States, and the owners of post coaches and hacks
11 from military service."